This federal agency spent $4.6M on shellfish in a month: watchdog

A report from OpenTheBooks.com – a government watchdog – shows the depths of government’s use-it-or-lose-it spending mentality, including the $4.6 million seafood fest financed by the Department of Defense.

Outside of luxuriant foods, records shows last year’s federal spending spree included $9,241 on a Wexford leather chair, $7.6 million on workout equipment, $53,004 in China, $11,800 on a tournament-level foosball table, and $672,000 on golf carts.

An across-the-board federal agency spending uptick in September – a total of $97 billion in contracts in September 2018 – is an annual tradition as agencies feverishly attempt to spend funds before the end of the fiscal year to hide that they can make do with less the following year.

The practice has become more extreme over the years. In September 2015 the agencies spent a mere $60.6 million

Open The Books found the Department of Defense spent a total of $61.2 billion, the Department of Health and Human Services $5.6 billion, and the Department of Veterans Affairs $5.2 billion, all in the month of September.